Athena Force 8: Contact (17 page)

His tongue, filling her mouth, was a good start. She shuddered at the eager, demanding promise of him. Then she almost whimpered when he drew back, a smug gleam in his eyes.

“You’re not big on wasting time, are you?” he asked, and he scooped her up and dropped her onto her bed. While she caught her balance on the bounce, he easily lifted the bed table out from between the two twins and stuck it in a corner. He shrugged off his jacket and tossed it onto the chair. Then, with one shove, he pushed Moonsong’s old bed across the floor to bump into Faith’s.

From down the hall, Absinthe yelled, “Shut the hell up!”

“Sorry,” Faith called back. But even if furniture moving was a bit much at this hour, she wasn’t really sorry at all.

“We’re gonna be real popular,” promised Roy, laughter in his voice. He removed his belt holster and lay his weapon over the jacket.

“So,” she prompted as he tugged his tie loose. She’d never realized watching a man undress could be this…riveting. “Crappy night.”

“So Max and me are called to the old Charity hospital to talk to some gangbangers. We get there and the beat cop—first officer to respond—tells us, ‘they aren’t talking, but before everyone shut up, one guy let slip that some blond chick beat him up.’”

Oh. Faith’s discomfort suddenly had less to do with wanting Roy to finish undressing and more to do with wanting to know how much he’d learned about today’s ambush. She didn’t want him to connect her to it. The ambush, and her sisters’ involvement, had too much to do with the rest of her day’s revelations.

The ones she was trying to forget.

She drew her knees up toward her chest, almost like a shield.

“It’s déjà vu to the other day,” Roy continued, tossing the tie and starting on his shirt buttons. “Sure enough, the E.R.’s holding these three shining examples of America’s youth until we can talk to them. Turns out some woman called in a report about them being unconscious in an alley. But she did it anonymously.”

Lynn,
thought Faith.
Or maybe Dawn.
One of them must have called while she’d been busy at the vet’s. Despite her discomfort with how Roy was looking at her at the moment—a lot more like a cop than like a lover—she felt glad. She liked that her sisters had the presence of mind to make sure the guys in that alley got medical attention.

“Dispatch sent a squad car to check it out,” Roy continued, shrugging out of his shirt now. He wore an undershirt, but she could see his chest hair over the top. She didn’t realize guys wore undershirts anymore. “Sure enough, someone beat down on these boys. But this time a weapon was used. That’s aggravated assault, which is why they called us. Max and me, we take over where the patrolmen stopped questioning them. Who’d they fight with? Do we maybe have some kind of gang war heating up? Like that. But they’re toughs. Now they aren’t talking, not even the guy who first said he’d been smacked down by a blonde.”

Then Roy paused, belt unbuckled but pants still zipped, his gaze dark and direct. “You wouldn’t know anything about this, would you, Bernie?”

“I didn’t assault anybody, if that’s what you mean.”

“Yeah.” His eyes narrowed with suspicion. “That’s heartfelt. Do you
know
something?”

She didn’t want to lie to him. She was such a hypocrite, considering how she’d blamed her mom for secrets. Even one more, to Roy, would be several too many.

She needed him. Tonight, at least. Now. If he left…

But he had the right to leave. So she compromised and said, “Maybe?”

He groaned, heartfelt—and sat on the expanded bed beside her.

Still wearing his damned undershirt and pants.

“This is serious, Faith,” he said. And it must be. It was the first time she’d heard him use her first name. “If they’re messing with you, you’ve got to file a complaint and get the bastards off the street. If you’re messing with them, I might end up having to arrest you, which would be damned embarrassing for everyone involved, meaning me.”

Desperate now, Faith considered her options.

She crossed her arms, caught the hem of her camisole and stripped it up over her head.

Roy stared at her topless form for a long, silent moment. Then, with a wordless noise of defeat, he bent over her and caught her mouth with his. Lecture forgotten, his hands went to the distraction she’d offered, and she arched into his warm, callused touch.

Yes.

In only a moment, he’d lost the undershirt. He was lying on top of her and she was wrapping her legs around his waist, wrapping her arms around his incredible bare torso, doing everything she could to encourage his nonverbal attentions. She felt like she hadn’t touched him, much less kissed him, in weeks instead of hours. She felt like she’d been stretched to the breaking point from waiting. And now…

Oh, now.

Her whole life had changed. The normalcy of him, of this—despite the fact that this, too, was a new development in her life—meant a hell of a lot more than whatever some top-secret laboratory might have done to her before she was born.

At least in the short-term.

And for now, tonight, short-term was all that mattered.

The next morning, when she reluctantly left her bed—and the nice, solid man in it—to take her shower, everything was great. Surprisingly great, considering how awful the previous day had been. Morning sex and lingering kisses, she guessed, could do that.

She thought she heard Roy’s cell phone ring while she was in the shower, but she tried not to listen in. She might have genetically altered superhearing, but that didn’t mean people didn’t deserve their privacy. And it wasn’t like Roy said much.

Then, when she got back to her room, clean and ready for the promised breakfast and ride to work, she was surprised to find him not only dressed but standing there, waiting.

Staring at her.

Something dark and hurtful sharpened his gaze. His mouth had definitely returned to threatening mode. And a sense of betrayal roiled off of his taut posture. Faith hesitated, confused. Why…?

Then she saw the small pile of clothes lying on her bed. Gauzy, gypsy clothes. With a black wig.

Roy shook his head only once before stepping forward and coldly snapping a pair of handcuffs on her. She supposed she could have made a run for it, could have fought him. Physically, she could have.

Emotionally, all she could do was stand there in shock.

“Faith Corbett, I’m placing you under arrest for the murder of Detective Sergeant Butch Jefferson.”

He jerked the cuffs, to make sure they were secure. Hard. Angry. “Or should I maybe call you Madame Cassandra?”

F
ive hours later, they were still questioning her.
They
included Roy’s new partner, Max, who’d dragged himself in almost eight hours before his shift would actually start. Chief of Detectives Captain Frank Crawford was there. And there were a pair of dayshift plainclothesmen whom Faith had come to think of as Slick and Bubba. Slick was a thirtysomething black man, impeccably groomed right down to the gel in his hair and the pin in his tie. Bubba was, well…a bubba. With a gun.

None of them was the person she wanted.

“I’ll only talk to Roy,” she warned them, for maybe the dozenth time. Slick and Bubba, who were holding up the far wall, rolled their eyes at each other, patronizing. Idiots. Had she phrased that as a request?

“Ms. Corbett, as I’ve been telling you, Detective Chopin has been removed from this case for obvious reasons.” Captain Crawford stopped pacing long enough to rub a tired hand down his skinny face, radiating stress. Considering what bits of background noise dribbled into the supposedly soundproof room, Faith wasn’t surprised. The capture of even a suspected cop killer had lit a fire under this station. “He’s in no position to help you—”

Faith laughed. “I’m not asking for his help, Captain. I doubt he’d give it.”

She faintly heard Roy’s bitter voice, behind the one-way mirror. “She’s got that right.”

Of course, nobody else in the room heard it. “
I’m
offering
him
something, not the other way around.
Information,
you morons,” she added, for Slick and Bubba’s edification.

Captain Crawford said, “Well, if you’ll tell us, we’ll be happy to pass your information on to the detective who brought you in. A little cooperation will go a long way.”

But she’d recently learned the secret to surviving police stations. She had her sense of self firmly in place. “Yes, it will, Captain. So cooperate. I talk to Roy.”

“We put a lab rush on the clothing found in your room, Ms. Corbett, and even waiting for DNA results it doesn’t look good for you. Traces of blood. Gunpowder residue. Goodbye, job. Goodbye, clean record. Goodbye freedom—you’re facing serious time, or worse.”

Faith wondered if Greg Boulanger had run the tests, or if he, too, had been removed from the case. “No, I’m not.”

Okay, so she wasn’t quite as sure as she pretended to be.

The captain slapped a Manila folder onto the table in front of her. “We’ve got the sworn testimony of a citizen who saw a woman of your height and build, with black hair and clothes matching those found in your room, leaving the scene of the crime.”

Roy hadn’t mentioned that part. “Anything else?”

“As a matter of fact—” But Crawford stopped himself, eyeing her warily. “We’re the ones conducting this damned interrogation, Ms. Corbett, not you. So how about you start answering our questions? What did you do with Sergeant Jefferson’s gun?”

She said nothing.

“Who was involved in the killing with you?”

She said nothing. But she felt relieved they didn’t believe she’d acted alone.

Corbett slammed a hand down beside the folder, leaning over her now. “Why did you want Butch Jefferson dead?”

That, she couldn’t ignore. “I didn’t! Butch was a wonderful man. How could
anyone
want him dead?”

“Obviously someone did. Maybe you can shed some light on who that might have been?” Before she could stop him, the captain tapped her under the chin to make her look up at him.

He and his wife were in separate beds. They’d become strangers. His one real joy was his young son. He—

She swung her head away, pushing her chair back from him—its feet squealed on the concrete floor, and the handcuff that attached her to the table pulled taut. It was either that or head-butt the guy, which would be trouble. “Don’t touch me!”

Captain Crawford reared back almost as quickly at her reaction. “What the hell?”

It was Roy’s new partner, Max Leonard, who intervened. “We’ve already established that she doesn’t like to be touched, Captain. Ms. Corbett, sweetheart, he wasn’t trying to hurt you.”

Faith gritted her teeth, embarrassed by her reaction, angry that they’d gotten her to talk at all. She hadn’t said he was trying to hurt her, damn it. She just didn’t want…

Okay, so maybe she was feeling the stress after all. The booking process alone had resulted in a few too many casual, normally harmless touches. Time to practice Krystal’s quiet breathing.

“As Roy told me,” she said tightly, “I have the right to remain silent.”

“Let me give this a try,” suggested Max, drawing the captain back. Roy’s new partner seemed like a nice enough guy, stocky, balding, fighting a middle-aged spread. He wore a wedding ring and a Mary medal. Instead of looming over Faith the way Captain Crawford had or intimidating her with his ability to move around the room while she had to stay in her little chair, Max sat on the corner of the table and held her gaze. Not touching her. “I’m sure Chopin also told you that you have the right to an attorney, sweetheart. Are you sure you don’t want us to send for one?”

“No,” Faith assured him, dragging together the threads of her poise. “Not yet.”

Not until she’d talked to Roy.

She’d tried, after the initial shock of the arrest. Handcuffed in the back seat of his car on the way over, she’d tried to explain. He’d just turned up the volume of his radio, zydeco music blasting out the windows, so that he couldn’t hear what she had to say. To judge from the way he was treating her now, the Faith he’d made love to not an hour before the arrest could have been someone else. Or dead.

Faith understood his arresting her. If she’d been a cop and found the backpack, she would have arrested her, too—though how he’d found the backpack was a whole other issue. What her secrets had done to their budding relationship, though—that pressed on her heart like a ten-ton weight.

They were through. She got that, and she knew she’d brought it on herself, through her secrecy. She wasn’t looking for sympathy. But he had to hear the truth from her, or he might never hear it…and not knowing would be even worse for him.

The first thing any attorney with half a brain would tell her was not to talk. And she sure as hell couldn’t count on ever getting an audience with Roy if this went to trial.

One problem at a time; that was how she’d take things.

“Do you want another cola?” asked Max gently. “You need a bathroom break?”

“I’m fine, thank you.”

“See, Faith—can I call you Faith?” Max’s good-cop routine was almost as skilled as Butch’s had been. It would have been funny, if only it weren’t so damned effective. Everything about the interrogation room was set up to make her feel alone and helpless. The lack of windows. The industrial-white walls and low-watt bulbs. The rudimentary table and plastic chairs, with her chair farthest from the door. Even the one-way mirror, with the threat of who knew how many unseen people watching her through it, played its role in Faith’s intimidation. Against all that, a little niceness went a long, long way.

But not long enough to make her forget what she had to do.

“You don’t look like a killer to me,” Max continued, deliberately soothing. “Like you say, you didn’t want Butch dead. I believe that. If you wanted him dead, why would you have called in help for him? I’m thinking someone else did the shooting, someone you could help us catch. You kept it secret because it was maybe an accident? Maybe you got scared? But we can’t help you, sweetheart, until you tell us how it went down.”

“And I will,” Faith assured him. Four relieved exhalations followed her promise before she added, “As long as Roy’s here to hear it directly from me. Otherwise, I’m not saying anything.”

Crawford slapped a hand against the painted brick wall and swore. “That’s it. Clear out, boys. Maybe once Ms. Corbett has a chance to ponder her fate for a while, she’ll figure out that she’s not a guest here, she’s an accused murderer.”

Slick and Bubba headed out first, exchanging amused glances. An apologetic Max followed and, finally, Crawford.

Then Faith was alone, one wrist still handcuffed to the table, in the hell room. Alone with her secret weapon.

One of her secret weapons, anyway.

They had no idea that she could hear what they were saying on the other side of the mirror.

“So send me in, Cap.” Ironic, how comfortingly familiar Roy’s voice seemed, even now that they were on opposite sides of more than that wall. At least he’d heard her say she didn’t want Butch dead, whether or not he believed it. “If it makes her confess, where’s the harm?”

“The appearance of partiality is the harm, Roy! I shouldn’t have to tell you that.”

“I only look partial if I don’t burn her lying little ass with this.”

“Yes, because we all know that boyfriends who’ve been played for a sap are paragons of impartiality.
No.
”

Faith pretended to study her ink-smudged fingers, knowing that she was being studied in turn. She’d been okay with the physical contact when she’d been fingerprinted, but that’s because she’d been braced for it.

“So why isn’t she asking for a lawyer?” That was Max.

“She’s a blonde,” said someone who sounded like Slick. “Who says blondes have to make sense?”

“I’m not questioning it, I’m just counting my blessings,” said the captain. “I’ve known stupid public defenders, but we won’t find one in this city stupid enough to leave this arrest unchallenged.”

“And they’d be wrong!” Roy protested.

“Really, Detective? ’Cause I’m thinking it wasn’t a search warrant you had in your pants when you showed up at her door last night.”

Faith scratched her nose, just in case her lips twitched.

She would have heard Roy’s yell even without genetically engineered superhearing. “Screw that!”

“Hey, Chopin.” Maybe his new partner really was a good cop, and didn’t just play one for interrogations. “The captain’s just saying what the D.A.’s office will tell you. Calm down.”

“You’re talking like I tried to hide what went down. Don’t think I wasn’t tempted. But I’ve been a freakin’ Serpico on this one, Cap. I’ve been one hundred percent forthcoming.”

“Oh, really? You were
boffing
the suspect!”

“I didn’t know she was a suspect at the time!”

“And how do we know you wouldn’t have considered it if you weren’t boffing her?”

“Whoa, now.” Max again. “Let’s all calm down. Chopin, how about you take us through this one more time before we make a decision.”

Faith pretended to be distracted by toeing a worn spot on the floor. She wanted to hear this as much as anybody.

Roy groaned—but he talked. “It’s maybe seven-thirty in the morning. I’ve been there since two, two-fifteen. Corbett’s in the shower.”

“Alone?” That would be Slick again, giving Roy a hard time.

“Yeah,
alone.
She’s got three roommates and only one bathroom between ’em. Also, she’s got a job to get to.”

“Not anymore, she doesn’t.” Slick, again.

“Can the commentary,” the captain warned. “Let the man give his report.”

“So my mobile rings. I don’t recognize the number. I answer. And it’s another freakin’ anonymous contact, this time a guy. He says he’s got a tip.”

Faith bit her lip. So whoever knew about the clothes in her backpack was a man?

“I don’t recognize the voice—he’s whispering. But he says, ‘You and Cassandra have a good time last night?’ I ask what the hell that’s supposed to mean, and he says, ‘Check the backpack on her closet shelf.’ And he disconnects.”

“Well, that’s a comfort. Any rookie knows that evidence stuffed in a backpack and kept on a closet shelf counts as plain view.” Captain Crawford treated sarcasm as an art form, didn’t he?

“Except I don’t look in the closet right away. Sure, I’m curious, but I’m no idiot, and this smells like a setup. I pull on some clothes and I head out to the kitchen, where two of Corbett’s roommates—the guy and the black girl—are making breakfast. They say hi. I say hi. I figure the girl, Moonsong they call her, is the most gullible so I say, ‘This is a great place. You mind if I look around while I wait for Faith?’ And she says ‘Sure, do you want pancakes?’”

Slick laughed. “She offered you pancakes?”

“I say ‘yes, thank you,’ and I head back to Corbett’s closet. Part of me still thinks this is a joke, but…there it was. The girl said ‘sure,’ Captain. She’s lived there a lot longer than Corbett, and she said ‘sure.’ That’s consent.”

“She knew you were a cop?”

“I interviewed her after Krystal Tanner’s murder. In case she’d forgotten that, I had the badge pinned to my belt. We’re covered.”

Faith considered all that, her expression deliberately neutral. Poor, manipulated Moonsong.

“Good. Good work. But we’ll need more than that to make a case against Little Mary Sunshine in there. Max is right. She did call for help. She doesn’t look like a murderer, and don’t think that won’t count with a jury.
And
she has no record.”

“We’re setting up a lineup for the witness,” said Bubba.

“And don’t forget, her roommate’s the one who drew the sketch that Butch had with him when he died,” added Roy. “Whether or not it’s a picture of Krystal Tanner’s killer, it links Corbett’s roommate to Celeste Deveaux and to Madame Cassandra. That links Corbett herself. A, to B, to C.”

So they knew that, too. The number of people Faith had involved in her masquerade were starting to stack up, weren’t they?

Not for the first time in the five hours that had passed since her arrest, she considered what she was going to do once she got out—and she had to assume, had to hope she would get out, or she’d be lost. She’d alienated her lover, her roommates, even her mom…her surrogate mom, anyway. Even if the charges didn’t stick, she doubted she could or should keep her job for long—the air of suspicion would interfere too strongly with her work. It was almost a year since she’d dropped out of school.

Maybe her sisters showing up yesterday hadn’t been an accident—not in the universal scheme of things. Maybe it was time to get to know Lynn and Dawn. Maybe Faith should seek out the Athena Academy and the Cassandras, to learn about her biological mother…and help find whoever had hired her killer. Maybe it was past time to confirm who and what she really was.